Love him or hate him, there is no denying that Robby Gordon is a competitor’s competitor. A guy who can get behind the wheel of just about anything and make it perform. You might say that Gordon is a badass that was made more in the style of Sixties era racers like Foyt, Gurney and Andretti.

Ok, enough man love for Gordon. These days, the guy is most likely to be seen at the wheel of some sort of racing truck, preferably in the dirt. The racer’s bid to win the 2014 Mint 400 ended just a few miles in, when his truck’s transmission broke. Looking at the insane pounding the truck takes on the desert trails near Vegas, it is little wonder than mechanical failures are a regular part of desert racing.

The 2009 edition of Dakar is set to wrap up tomorrow, and while Robby Gordon is still shown in 3rd place things aren’t looking good for the American favorite. Yesterday Gordon finished a disappointing 16th on the stage thanks to a rock stuck in the throttle linkage. It appears that more problems have hit the Monster Hummer, as they are showing in 23rd place today but still clinging to that podium spot.

A couple of days ago, the Boston Globe published a big gallery of absolutely stunning images from Dakar. The battle royale between enthusiasts and tree huggers in the comments section is almost as fun as the photos!

As was so kindly pointed out by a commenter on Tom’s most recent Forgotten Ugly Sporty Cars post, I haven’t been keeping up to date with Dakar. I hate to say it, but sometimes life gets in the way of reporting.

While I’ve been away though, some pretty crazy stuff has been going on. Stage 11 was canceled due to wicked weather. WRC champ Carlos Sainz had a big one, dropping the nose of his VW into a ditch and flipping the beast on it’s roof. Somehow, he thought he would continue even though his co-piloto has a broken shoulder.

While Sainz’s retirement is big news, so is the climb of American Robby Gordon who is now up to 3rd overall. With a second place on Stage 10 and 3rd today on 12, it looks like the Dakar Gods are finally beginning to smile upon Robby G.

While we’re really just happy to have daily Dakar updates every evening on TV, most of us here in The Garage are really rooting for American anti-hero Robby Gordon. People can say what they want about Robby, but he truly is a racer’s racer who just wants to win in anything he drives.

At the end of day 1, I think we all were a little sad to read that he had only finished in 17th position. Watching the video after the break however, puts a bit of a different spin on things. Basically, Gordon scared the crap out of himself and a quad rider and is now driving with his brain. This is a good thing! Having seen some in car footage on the OLN coverage, I’m amazed that some riders haven’t been squished. The dust is incredibly thing and hangs in the air forever meaning that drivers can’t see a darned thing.

Fortunately, today’s standings show that Robby G is whittling away at his time deficit and has moved up to 9th position overall. This is despite a couple of left rear wheel failures caused by extended periods of 120 mph plus hammering across the countryside.

Check out the first video from Team Dakar USA after the break[Read more…]

Things have been rather quiet here in The Garage these days, as we all attempt to actually be part of our families over the holidays. Fortunately for all of us, there are 542 rally crews who eat, sleep and breath Dakar!

The gigantic field of cars, bikes, atv’s and trucks left Buenos Aires this morning to begin a 6000 kilometer loop that will bring them back to Buenos Aires on January 17th.

This is the first time the Dakar has happened off the African continent. To give you an idea of how brutal the route must be, only 421 crews have finished the first stage!

We’ll try to keep our readers up to date as much as possible. Today, we have a lead up video from Robby Gordon and Team Dakar USA. Gordon finished the day in 17th place out of 168 cars.

Not only has the route been changed but so has the name. Now it will be called the Dakar Series which will take place in three stages. The first stage will start on April 11th in Budapest and finish in Hungary and Romania. The second stage will begin in Portugal in September and then they race through Spain and Portugal from Buenos Aries Argentina to Chile and then return to Buenos Aries for the finish.

This video is a bit unsettling in more ways than one. We’ve all heard that it’s not safe for a US military vehicle to come to a stop in downtown Baghdad, and this video shows how these guys must drive to stay alive. Clearly the US Army sends their drivers to the Robby Gordon Baja school of traffic avoidance. It’s a bit scary to think how many pedestrians get caught out by the fast moving monsters, but I guess this falls into the you gotta do what you gotta do category.

Dakar is done for another year. The Mitsubishi team won in the car division, capitalizing on their reliability, rather than outright speed. That is not to say they were slow by any means, but reliability is king in any endurance event. The HUMMER of Robby Gordon and Team Dakar USA finished a well deserved 8th. Reliability and bad luck prevented a better finish, but they cranked off a stage win and a number of top 5 stage finishes. The team did a great job overall.

So why is it that the Monster Energy HUMMER crew received such poor coverage in the televised coverage?[Read more…]

With Dakar now over, we all know the final results, thanks to the speed of the internet, but editing still takes time. Here we have the Team Dakar USA video from the second last day. Robby Gordon has the look of someone who feels a bit disappointed. Don’t be. In only your second season, you’ve won a stage and finished in the top ten in a 2 wheel drive truck as compared to the killer 4 wheel drives from VW and Mitsubishi. Job well done, and don’t you forget it!